A Dance To Remember
by mioneshipper
Summary: AU: Its the night of the Yule Ball in Hermione's sixth year. The night goes well but doesn't start till everyone else is sound in bed.


In the early hours of the morning in Hogwarts highest corridors, the music from the Yule Ball faded into a small echo. Gradually as the final tune whistled its last breath of the night students began to file, shuffle and commune up the stairs or through the dungeons to their dormitories. Most students panting, rosy cheeked and smiling they clambered, chattering along hallways, adamant to reach their beds and sleep, with Christmas only hours away. Fifteen minutes passed in the clock tower before the masses of students finally fell silent, their dormitories cradling their whispers of "goodnight" and their distinct mumble of "we should have this every year." Teachers alike seemed resigned for the night and resting in their quarters. The corridors were thick black and the walls sighed a relief of surrender for the night, but in the sixth corridor a door squeaked open and disturbed the peace around it.

"Come on." Whispered a soft voice.

Footfalls in the darkness and a mouse like swish of silk.

"Where are we going?" whispered back a croakier voice.

"You'll see."

Hand in hand the two dark matters scuttled through the dark, not daring to light their wands but guided each other. Their footsteps halted at the bottom of a staircase and with much shuffling and scarping against stone short kitten heels were removed. Bare feet patted along leather shoes up steep stairwells and on the seventh floor they paused again.

"Are you ever going to tell me where were going?" he asked mockingly.

"Just wait a minute." She breathed with fake impatience.

The two arrived to a new corridor lined with gargantuan windows, that illuminated the stonewalls with moonlight. As they scurried past, her leading him by the hand, the luminous crisp white light of the moon bounced off Hermione and Remus. Rounding the corner she slowed and stopped before a slab of blank wall and closed her eyes. Dumb-founded Remus watched her intently but his attention was caught slowly by the crumbling of a wall against wood. Standing before him was an eight-foot tall wooden door and Hermione was smiling up at him.

"Brilliant, isn't it?" she awed.

"What is it?" he asked inquisitively, gawking at the wooden gates.

"Anything we want it to be."

Remus ran a hand through his scruffy hair and knowing he was questioning this night, Hermione led him no farther but pushed open the doors and walked through them. Remus stood outside the opened doors, staring at the small crack she left open to entice him. Only a stream of bright light could tempt his curiosity at first but not long later, sound came from the room. A clapping, a clapping crowd at first and then a tinkling tune mingled into the melody and Remus cracked a smile, a ghoulish grin, while the song began to play.

"_So this is what you meant, when you said that you were spent._

_And now it's time to build from the bottom of the pit, right to the top._

_Don't hold back. Packing my bags and giving the academy a rain check."_

"Imagine Dragons." He mumbled, shaking his head in disbelief, cracking his hand through the doors and prising them open. Gawping, half open-mouthed, the room washed over him and the doors clicked closed automatically behind him. A room larger than what he would imagine the Queen's ballroom would look like that was filled with white crystal light sprinkling gently across the black marble floors. "It's Time" playing by Imagine Dragons, very unfitting to the classical backing of their situation but perfect, perfect non the less. And in the middle of this surreal, bliss is Hermione dancing on her own to his favourite song.

"_I don't ever want to let you down,_

_I don't ever want to leave this town,_

_Cause after all, The City never sleeps at night."_

In blares the chorus then and away she twirls, and she catches his eye and smiles, not inviting but not shunning him away. So he steps forward, of course and takes her hand to dance.

"_I'm just the same as I was,_

_Now don't you understand?_

_That I'm never changing who I am!"_

Within seconds he forgets everything, age, time and the revolving earth and he sees her and somehow he's watching himself from the doorway where normality stood next to him and the doors slammed into it's face.

"Hermione." He whispered, gazing down at her and watching her smile, oh so honey-like and soft at the sound of her name.

"You're beautiful."

"_This road never looked so lonely,_

_This house doesn't burn down slowly._

_To Ashes, to ashes."_

She just smiled wider and closed her eyes letting the music crash around her with him at her arm, because she knew whatever she said would never amount to what he wanted and that this was a moment of brief eternity.


End file.
